


The Denial of Truth

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Murder by Numbers (2002)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-12-22
Updated: 2003-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-25 04:56:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1632671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Every profound spirit needs a mask: even more, around every profound spirit a mask is growing continually, owing to the constantly false, namely shallow, interpretation of every word, every step, every sign of life he gives." - Friedrich Nietzsche</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Denial of Truth

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Proserpina

 

 

 _The only atheism is the denial of truth._ \- Arthur Lynch   
 

* * *

  


She told me I really needed to get laid. Her tone was sarcastic though I'm sure her intent was true. Even then she was flirting with me; even then she wanted something she thought I could give her. 

But I had nothing to offer her. Not then, and not ever really. Even as I pulled her close and kissed her amid my prize-winning orchids ... I can't say I really wanted her. 

Perhaps on a hormonal level, somewhere on the surface thanks to the faults of my flesh, I was attracted to her. But it went no further, no deeper than some weak physical desire. She held no mystery for me. A common slut with an innocent air and a pretty face, an easy victory even for someone like me. 

It was not her lips I kissed that night. 

Nor was it her scent I inhaled as she leaned into me, nor her skin I caressed with tentative fingers. 

These were your features, your characteristics I absorbed with eyes closed, mouth open, heart racing. You, or at least the vision of you I allowed my mind to believe was real. The complex puzzle of your soul that I take secret delight in building and rebuilding. The more I know of you the more I want to crawl inside your very being and map it from the inside out. 

Often I feel alone in this want, this yearning, and I try to hide it from you, though I'm sure it blazes in my eyes with suppressed ferocity every time you look at me. I'd venture to guess it would be obvious to anyone less blind than you. 

And you _are_ blind. Blind, or willfully ignorant, perhaps because you see the situation differently than I do. We both feel the sparks that pass between us when you touch me, whether with fingers gently petting my hair, or with insistent hands threatening to strangle at my throat. I know you feel the electricity, but maybe you interpret it as something other than what I see it as. 

The intimacy of the freedom we expressed together, the crime we committed with confident superiority, is undeniable. You touch me because you want to assure yourself that I am real, that the chains I helped you to break are really gone. 

And there's a reason why I don't touch you in return. 

Your eyes that betray the kind intelligence you hide behind a biting wit, your bewitching grin that so often dissolves into the softened smirk I know you reserve only for me ... these are the things I fear I can't resist. I don't dare touch you because then my wall of dignity would surely crumble and leave me standing there, naked to your roving eyes. I can't afford that kind of vulnerability, not when there's so much at stake. 

And everything's at stake with us. Our entire relationship walks a constant tightrope, and even the slightest imbalance could send us tumbling into the abyss. I know this, so I don't risk it. 

But it's getting harder. You make it so hard for me, Richard. 

I can't contain it any more. This feeling, it's breaking through the cracks in my defenses, seeping through the bullet holes your presence shoots through my shield. I needed to deflect it. I had to send the heat somewhere else because it was burning me up inside. 

Lisa was my only viable option. Succumbing to her advances has been an easy way to release the tension that constricts my insides. 

When I kissed her in my greenhouse, imagining your firm face where her soft cheeks filled my hands, she pulled away from me. She told me I was different, asked me what had changed. I nodded, telling her I was different, and I kissed her again without answering her question. 

I wouldn't lie to her, and yet I couldn't tell her the truth so I smothered her query with my lips and left it at that. The change was you, it was the freedom I felt unfurling in my chest as I slid my tongue between her lips, as I sought to explore your mouth through hers. 

She was a _toy_ , Richard, can't you see? She was an object I used to fulfill my fantasy, one that had nothing to do with her. 

Had I known you'd react with jealousy, rather than the casual indifference I've come to expect from you, I never would have touched her. I wouldn't have bothered. If you want me I'm yours, Richard. 

And yet, even as you hold me pinned against my bedroom wall, practically spitting in my face with your irrational accusations, I'm unsure as to where your anger is coming from. Are you angry with Lisa for getting what you wanted? Or are you upset with me for treading on your turf, for leveling the field between us by finally achieving what you've always excelled and I've always failed at? 

I long to kiss you but your grip is tight and my mind is unsure so instead I try to communicate my inner monologue to you through my eyes. But you don't see it. 

You _are_ blind. 

Blind as a fucking bat, Richard. Dumb as a post! I'm begging you, pleading with you in silent stares just to kiss me, to hold me like you actually care ... but you just drop your hands and call me a schmuck because I didn't have sex with Lisa. 

You missed the point. Like you always do. I don't really want Lisa. I only wanted to kiss her, no more than that because once the clothes came off my fantasy of you would have dissolved. You don't have breasts, or curved hips, or that frustrating lack between your thighs. It was hard enough to feel the thin masculinity of your lips through the plump femininity of hers. 

And that's why I stopped. I pushed her away just as her hands began to wander towards the buttons at my collar. I didn't want her to see my skin, my scars. She hadn't earned them. 

I thought you had. I would have shown them to you. I'd have gladly exposed myself to your gaze. 

If I thought you wanted it. 

But you slapped a disk to my chest and insulted the girl you thought I desired. I defended her out of some chivalrous habit, or perhaps just to spite you, just to feed your ignorance. I stared again, this time at the floor, and you made your exit in typical flashy fashion. 

You knew I'd check the disk immediately. You know me well enough to know that, so how can you not see! 

And it did hurt. As I watched you claim what you've had before, what you knew you could have again, I felt the tears stinging my eyes. I thought you were too good for her, Richard. I knew you had stooped to that level in the past, the meaningless trysts and instinctual sex that literally fell into your lap. 

But something made me think I had thawed you, warmed your frozen essence even just a little. I helped you appreciate poetry, I taught you everything I know about freedom and crime and systematic deception. I introduced you to Absinthe, my dear friend, and you liked her as much as I do. 

Was I wrong to love you? 

Your cracking voice declares affection when I finally pick up the phone. You beg me to believe that you've done this for me, that it's for my benefit. I say nothing, and you don't allow a pause. You push on, asking me about Ray. 

Yes. Back to plan. That's the crux of it, isn't it? The central issue in our relationship? 

Maybe that's all I am to you. A means to an end, a machine good only for thinking up games to keep you amused. It seems your enfilade of manipulation is entirely nondiscriminatory. It includes me, too. 

I suppose I should feel humiliated, or angry, or in some other way emotionally affected. But I only feel cold. I only feel numb. 

And as I press the button, the one that separates our morphed faces and destroys the single unit I thought we had become, a thought occurs to me. 

Perhaps it is I who am blind. 

 


End file.
